Best Of Arts & Entertainment

The 1200 block of Bannock Street is a difficult place to build something, not because the topography is difficult, but because the level of competition for architectural excellence is so fierce nearby.

The railroads were essential to Denver's development, and there has been a train station at 17th and Wynkoop since the 1880s. Union Station, in its present form, was built in 1914 by the renowned firm of Gove and Walsh.

At more than 22 feet high, Christopher Weed's monumental "Connected" is as tall as, or taller than, nearby buildings, and since it's on a raised circle in the middle of a roundabout, it seems to soar even higher.

Last summer, Denver's Birdseed Collective and the Urban Arts Fund worked with art couple Hari Paniker and Deepti Nair — best known for their haunting, backlit cut-paper dioramas — to add a mural to a growing project on the walls of the I-70 underpass at Lincoln Street and 46th Avenue in Globeville.

After the death of comedian/actor Robin Williams last year, we were hard-pressed to find new reasons to smile; the Colorado connection from his show Mork & Mindy made us feel like we'd lost a native son (even though the Mork character was from outer space).

This past summer, it seemed as though beautiful, cosmopolitan, street-smart murals were blossoming everywhere, as teams of artists began painting walls throughout the city and along the Cherry Creek and Platte River greenways, thanks to funding from the city's Urban Arts Fund graffiti-prevention program.

The hoopla in February over the opening of the touring exhibit 1968 at History Colorado overshadowed El Movimiento: The Chicano Movement in Colorado, a locally produced 1968 side trip that debuted at the same time, but its impact is no less stunning.

Dancer and RedLine resident Tara Rynders is on a global mission to bring her moves right out into the streets, and she's been doing it, country by country, since 2011, when she launched You & Me, an ongoing series of site-specific interactive performances that has been on the road ever since.

The thing that immediately set Stephen Batura: Stream apart from its peers was the fact that once viewers were inside the gallery, they were completely surrounded by landscape paintings, mostly set along the Platte River.

Taos and Santa Fe were very cosmopolitan places from an art standpoint in the 1920s and '30s, and many of the artists who lived there or visited were well aware of recent developments in vanguard art overseas — developments such as abstraction.

In 1973, budding curator Ron Otsuka took the helm of the Denver Art Museum's Asian Art department and immediately began working, through the solicitation of gifts, to bolster those parts of the collection that were strong and to shore up the weaker parts.

The Arvada Center's Collin Parson and Kristen Bueb have put together one great exhibit after another, but their finest effort to date has been the combination of shows that included Unbound: Sculpture in the Fields, for which they tapped the expertise of Cynthia Madden Leitner of the Museum of Outdoor Art.

For Angela Beloian: In Technicolor, the Boulder-based artist created a body of sharp-looking paintings and screen prints that riffed on minimalism, abstract surrealism, psychedelic art and op art simultaneously.

Tobias Fike is best known for performance-based videos and photos done with collaborator Matthew Harris, but for the elegant meta-modernist Tobias Fike: Then and now and then, Fike focused on himself and his place in the universe.

Paper provides the base for watercolors, drawings and pastels, and it's a key component of collages. For Cecily Cullen, the creative director at Metropolitan State University's Center for Visual Art, it also works for sculptures and bas-reliefs.

Trees, shrubs, bushes, flowers and cacti have always been the true stars of the Denver Botanic Gardens, but the institution added sculpture shows a few years ago — and the idea has allowed for one triumph after another.

Photographer Suzanne Heintz and her too-perfect mannequin family, including husband Chauncey and daughter Mary Margaret, have been the subjects of an ongoing project called Life Once Removed for fifteen years.

Although he pens comics for Westword every week, that's just a fraction of Noah van Sciver's creative life; he's also published tiny zines, a full-fledged Blammo comic book and a well-received Fantagraphics graphic novel, The Hypo.

Aurora isn't messing around when it comes to the arts, something it proved a year ago by naming Slam Nuba veteran (and a member of the group's 2011 National Poetry Slam champion team) Jovan Mays as its first civic poet laureate.

Uche Ogbuji won a 2014 Colorado Book Award for the poetry he penned in Ndewo, Colorado. Born in Nigeria, Ogbuji traveled the planet before landing in Boulder to work as a computer engineer and raise a family. In his poetry, he blends his love for the environment and the Rocky...

Author Kent Haruf, author of luminous novels about life on Colorado's eastern plains, died last fall, and this year, the Denver Center presented Benediction, dramatized by Eric Schmiedl, the third of Haruf's novels the company has staged.

An original piece created by Buntport Theater, Naughty Bits sets up three stories, all involving the famed Roman statue of Hercules — the one that was lovingly restored in the eighteenth century except for one teeny part: his penis.

With its complex set requirements, numerous characters and thoughtful plot, Ambition Facing West is an ambitious choice for a small company, and BETC did it proud. The play deals with three generations of an immigrant family: Stipan, who leaves Croatia for the States before World War I and marries a...

Dave Belden played John Starr — the narrowly focused and sometimes unpleasant violinist whose obsession with music blinds him to his living daughter's hunger for affection — with quiet conviction in Charles Ives Take Me Home.

A literary S&M fest involving whips and leather; a one-man piece about sexual predation, rage, forgiveness and understanding; an examination of the very personal way a Boston woman experiences class, power and powerlessness; a wry comedy about two weary fortyish losers falling in love; and a brilliant play about a...

A pilot who's been carrying out air strikes in Iraq and loving the solitary blue of the sky she inhabits is grounded when she becomes pregnant, then tasked with launching drone attacks from the safety of an air-conditioned trailer in the Nevada desert.

The character of Jane is at the heart of This, a bittersweet comedy. Widowed, she's having trouble coping with her young daughter and life in general — and she hasn't yet dealt with her husband's cremains.

Having dressed up for a costume party, Sonia, played by Amelia White, transforms from a down-at-the-heels, enraged and self-pitying nobody in Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike into a magnificent sequin-clad dowager.

For our money, this smaller-scale version of Next to Normal was more moving and involving than the Broadway production that came through a while back: You cared more about the characters; the plot made more sense; the songs came across more clearly.

Professor Bernard Barrow (aka Jeremy Make) explains the passion for William Blake that led him and his colleague Ellen Barker (Amanda Berg Wilson) to make love naked on the campus quad, an act that threatens their jobs.

The literati are pretty much guaranteed to appear for each summer's three productions at the Colorado Shakespeare Festival. And since professors often assign the shows to their students, you'll see lots of bright young people there as well.

The Boulder Ensemble Theatre Company realized early on that many top scientists live and work in town, and director Stephen Weitz decided to reach out to them — for both audience augmentation and creative symbiosis.

All the world really is a stage when you take your theater to the trail. At a Theatre-Hikes performance, participants are greeted by a trail leader and guided along a moderate hike to the first scene of a play.

The venerable Avenue Theater has undergone some changes recently, but it's still the place to go for funny, and it's still as warm, grungy, unpretentious and welcoming as ever, with the booze flowing freely among happily lubricated audience members.

Su Teatro's Tony Garcia widened the scope of his work as a playwright with his 2011 collaboration with journalist Sonia Nazario on a play based on her well-received account of the Honduran migrants who ride atop trains in dangerous company in search of the promise of a better life in El Norte.

"Doin' the most" is the motto of the Black Actors Guild — and its members live that out, mounting plays and multi-disciplinary performances weekly, and hosting and organizing regular improv and standup nights year-round.

You don't often think about the comfort of your favorite movie house until the action on the screen shifts your focus to the pain in your back or just how close that popcorn-gobblin' stranger is to you at a sold-out show.

For the past half-decade, Tammy Brislin has overseen nearly every aspect of this growing women's film festival, which each year brings bigger movies, more star power and plenty of discussion to the table as a great way to honor National Women's Month.

David B. Weaver thinks small. His project-in-a-trailer, Davey B. Gravey's Tiny Cinema, seats four at a time for 8mm screenings and rolls to wherever the action is — from the Boulder Outdoor Cinema to the Starz Denver Film Festival — to entertain guests with silent films and live ukulele accompaniment by Weaver, who dresses in vaudevillian garb.

A little-known secret about the Esquire, the beloved arthouse at Sixth and Downing, is that it has always housed one of Denver’s largest movie screens, which makes it the perfect place — with the help of the theater’s specialty film series — to catch up on some of the great Cinemascope classics of yore or just any larger-than-life movie that will make you say, “They sure don’t make ’em like they used to.”

Musical wunderkind Paul Buscarello has a way with improvising fresh, unique scores for some of cinema’s silent classics, and he’s reinvigorated such gems as The Phantom Carriage and Pandora’s Box with a young sound that polishes the dust right off the screen. His talents aren’t tied to a specific venue...

John Golter brings great local shorts and feature films to light at Glob — a DIY superspace and performance venue — once a month. This fresh series has heralded some quiet geniuses, serving as a great place for amateur filmmakers to work through their burgeoning visions with the help of...

For some reason, many Colorado filmmakers tend to render their work dull by framing our city's landmarks and scenic vistas in ways that distract from the narrative at hand and feel more like tourism promos.

Director Heather Dalton put seven years of loving care into the film Neal Cassady: The Denver Years, an in-depth look at the manic Beat icon's early days as a boy on Denver's skid row and his less-publicized life as a family man.

Over two big, well-done days each June, PrideFest brings all of Denver together in the correct way by offering just the right wares, foods and a whole lot of entertainment throughout Civic Center Park.

Usually attended only by nervy fledgling standups and neighborhood inebriates who resent the incursion, open-mike nights often have the feel of a glum joke workshop — which is why emcee Kevin O'Brien likes to mix things up, kicking off each comedy open mike at the Matchbox with a throaty rendition of "America the Beautiful."

Too Much Fun is a success story years in the making. By creating a bridge between the local comedy and music scenes (both of which have a fair bit of overlap with the service industry), the Fine Gentleman's Club has achieved the impossible dream of hosting a successful weekly comedy show for free.

Comedy thrives in dark rooms with low ceilings. At Comedy Works' historic downtown location, the generally cocktail-besotted crowd is tightly packed into the venue's cozy showroom; once the lights darken, they become an anonymous mob freed from any sense of propriety.

Denver's exploding drag scene is teeming with a card deck's worth of queens hoofing and hot-assing all over town, but Janessa Befierce isn't taking a slow pony ride to the top; she's grabbing the reins of a stallion and racing it there.

With every new season of RuPaul's Drag Race, Tracks hosts a series of viewing parties, and this year the spot will feature its own competition as well, in which a bevy of queens will submit to a sixteen-week boot camp of wigs, heels, makeup, sequins, and the tightest tucks this side of the Platte.

It's no secret that Denver burlesque has helped put this cowtown on the map: The notable names who take over intimate stages all over the city also headline major festivals and receive accolades on the global burlesque scene.

With a recent renovation that included the addition of an expansive front deck, this East Colfax watering hole solidified itself as the perfect spot for meeting up with pals and dishing all the recent gossip.

This mammoth gay club already has a sterling reputation for welcoming all comers, no matter their sexual orientation, but on Thursdays the place truly becomes the United Nations of dance parties, with every inch of space occupied by all manner of man, woman and teen.

Belting out the Spice Girls' "Say You'll Be There" is always fun, but sometimes you just want to get in touch with your inner Selena and sing "Como La Flor" while a frozen margarita melts all over the microphone.

With an undying love for music and the intimate concert experience that often gets lost in the nosebleeds of the Pepsi Center and other large venues, Strings & Wood aims to bring concerts back to the living room — literally.

The intimate but spacious setup at Bar Standard is perfect for accommodating the people who pack the dance floor on Friday nights, when TheHundred brings some of the best tune-spinners on the planet to town.

Eschewing the aesthetics of giant EDM shows, which have been increasingly popular in Colorado lately, Deep Club formed in 2013 with a mission to provide an alternative to those larger-than-life presentations.

Beta has a downtown location and sizable dance floor, but that's not what makes it the best dance club in Denver. It's also got a slick, sleek layout and a large patio where smokers can congregate and watch the LoDo night unspool.

The hi-dive has brought in top-notch local and national acts for eleven years now — and while the lineup is a good part of its success (talent buyer Ben Desoto does a noble job), there's more to the venue's charms.

Denver is home to a startling array of home-grown jazz clubs. Dazzle Restaurant & Lounge is not the one with the most history or the one with the most novelty, but it is without question the one with the best jazz.

Stuffed to the gills with new and used books, graphic novels, local-band CDs and vinyl, Mutiny Information Cafe is a place where you can sit at a table, sip coffee and flip through a book while a loud punk band plays on the floor just a few feet away.

Summit Music Hall owner Mike Barsch says he spent three years shopping for sound systems, "trying to set us apart from the rest," before going with an Italian GTO C-12, the Ferrari of rock-venue sound systems, last fall.

In its first year of operation by AEG Rocky Mountains, Fiddler's Green (which took back its original name last year after years as Comfort Dental Amphitheater) has gone from being a serviceable spot for watching your favorite mega-star from the lawn to downright pleasant.

If you've been to a punk-rock show in Denver over the past five years, chances are you've seen Aaron Saye: He's usually perched at the back of the room with a video camera and a smile, documenting the night.

Although Youth on Record changed its name from Flobots.org and found a new home last year, the group's goal is still the same: empowering young people to use their musical abilities in order to be heard.

This is not an underdog story. Gregory Alan Isakov is among Denver's most well-known songwriters, and Laura Goldhamer, who directed the "Amsterdam" video, is a familiar name to anyone with even passing familiarity with the city's creative community.

Paper gatefold CD packaging is hardly a new thing. And given the current era of weed culture in Colorado, it's only natural that someone would use hemp rather than wood fiber to make cardboard for a CD sleeve — which is exactly what promoter Morris Beegle proposed to Kathryn Ellinger of Sleepers for Drive, the group's first album in nearly a decade.

Artist Vincent Comparetto describes his Werk Out Palace project this way: "Imagine if Richard Simmons was the most powerful lesbian in the world who could inspire you to crush your lover into dust with your thighs."

At some recent point in time, people like investment bankers started paying attention to music festivals, and the industry ballooned. Now the summer concert season feels like an arms race between massive promoters rushing to cram more bands, more people and more amenities into any given field or parking lot.

At the 2014 awards luncheon of the Colorado Business Committee for the Arts, Governor John Hickenlooper repeated a claim that he's been making since he was mayor: Metro Denver has more music venues than Austin, a city that has a much bigger reputation as a music mecca and even bills itself as "The Live Music Capital of the World."